Cloudscape

Some futurists predict that, just as evolution was able to create conscious brains, we might, by emulating evolution, be able to create conscious computers. Since evolution has already done this, there seems no reason to assume that we can't. Evolution has no intelligence. We do, and because of this, we are able to evolve billions of times faster than anything else in nature. Moreover, since there are already conscious computers, all we need to do is to reverse-engineer it.

It may seem far too much work for us to decode every signal in our brain, but we must remember that our computers can already do a lot of work for us. The USNO-B1.0 catalog, for instance, cataloged a billion stars in 3 billion observations — far too much for a human, but not for a computer. Likewise, we might one day be able to program a computer that will decode the signals of the brain for us.

Some futurists go so far as to say that we will be able to build computers that  will be similar enough to our brain that we might be able to transfer our consciousness into it, a process called "uploading" or "mind transfer." The most important issues with this today, however, are philosophical: what causes consciousness, and therefore, how can we know how to transfer it?

It seems, somehow, that our consciousness is spread across all our neurons, and the continuity of that consciousness seems to be formed through the connections between them. Somehow, it therefore has to be possible through some technology to channel consciousness from one conscious computer (such as the brain) into another, since our own brain possesses this very technology. Somehow, our brain can channel our consciousness through a great number of neurons at the same time, even though those neurons are wide apart, so that our consciousness can be present in a great number of neurons at the same time.

Yet, if we connected a computer to our brain, like one neuron is connected to another, our consciousness would apparently be left behind in our own brain: while we could be conscious of information the computer would interchange with our brain, we could not be conscious of any information in the computer itself. Thus, if we would connect a billion computers with our brain, it would apparently not be possible to be conscious of all information being processed in all these computers, since not all this information could be contained in our brain. Or would it?

We are ourselves little more than this, billions of computers which are our neurons, connected to form our brain. How can we be conscious of the information processed in all those computers at once? How can we be conscious of our entire brain? If our brain could not be conscious of a billion computers connected to it, how does our brain manage to be conscious of the billions of computers within itself? How is one neuron conscious of the information being processed in other neurons? Most of these neurons aren't even directly connected. It appears that an indirect connection is enough.

If an indirect connection is enough, then if our brain would be connected to a network of billions of computers, like one neuron is connected to a network of billions of other neurons, would that also be enough to become aware of those billions of computers and every bit of information being processed in them, even though our own brain would have no direct connection with them, nor contain that information?

When two conscious computers (such as brains) are connected and then disconnected, what determines which way the consciousness of the two computers goes anyway? Or does it remain in both? If consciousness is determined by connections, then what determines when there is a connection anyway? As said, most neurons are not directly connected. Why is an indirect connection enough? Does consciousness permanently spread to another computer as soon as it connects with it, even if the connection is itself not permanent, and will the consciousness remain in both computers even when the two are disconnected (though neither of both can still be self-conscious of the part of their consciousness ? And if not, then in which of the computers will it end up, and why?

Either how, if our brain were connected to a computer which imitates our brain, then whatever is connecting the consciousness between our neurons will also connect the consciousness between the brain and computer, even though we don't understand how it works.

The only thing we therefore need to do to is to make a computer similar enough to our own brain; how similar it needs to be is hard to say, but suppose that we made a computer more and more similar to the brain step by step, and tried to connect it to our consciousness all the while, we might eventually make the right step.

The irony is, however, that even if our consciousness would flow into the network of computers, our brain would itself still believe that this would not be the case, and because of this, there could be no objective way of knowing whether it would work; the only way you could find out would be to try it for yourself.

Once connected to the network, it is unlikely that the brain would still have a consciousness of itself, because that would mean that, by analogy, our neurons would also have a consciousness of their own, and, what is more, so would any combination of neurons. Yet, of the infinitely many possible combinations of neurons I could be, I happen to be conscious of the entire brain, or, more accurately, I am the entire consciousness of the brain. This apparently proves that consciousness automatically spreads across the entire computer it is in, like gas spreads over the entire space it is in.

Also, as soon as the brain would connect to a network, any information it would process would be part of a greater processing of information, so that it would have little or no meaning of itself. Because of this, the brain would cease to be an individual, as it would be part of something greater.

Again, note that by the word "computer," I may also refer to the brain, and the network of computers with which the brain would connect could include other brains plugged in to the network. In fact, through this network, all brains in the world could be connected.

If a brain were then disconnected from the network, the same thing would happen as there would happen if a neuron was disconnected from the rest of the brain: a separate consciousness would form in the brain, but the original consciousness, which had once been in the brain, would now remain in the network, as the network is far greater. After all, we do lose neurons from time to time, yet our consciousness remains in our brain, rather than being lost with the neuron. The question remains what happens to the consciousness of people with split brain, in whom the corpus callosum has been severed. Probably, the consciousness of these people ends up in the dominant brain half, and a separate consciousness is formed in the other. It can be seen as an extreme case of dissociation.

Once connected to the network, the body would still be valuable and should not be disposed of, so that issues such as those met in "uploading" are avoided: if the brain's consciousness were simply duplicated into another computer, then the consciousness would not be transferred into the computer because the two are not connected.

The idea of uploading goes from the principle that consciousness is caused by patterns, but this principle (by some called "patternism") causes problems. For instance, suppose that rather than one, two duplicates of the pattern are made, upon which the original is destroyed. According to patternism, the consciousness should now transfer into the duplicate — but which of the two? The consciousness cannot be transferred into both duplicates, since the two cannot interact, much as the consciousnesses in people with split brain cannot interact, thus the consciousness should be transferred into one of the two. But if consciousness is determined by patterns, then the transfer cannot be random, as this would mean that it would be determined by randomness and not patterns, and in that case, the consciousness might as well be transferred to an entirely different brain. There must be something which determines to which of the two duplicates the consciousness is transferred, as the determination of consciousness would otherwise be acausal. If it would have no cause, it would have no reason to be what it is, rather than something else, which is unscientific.

Consciousness is caused by patterns, but location is one aspect of those patterns. Producing a copy of one's brain elsewhere does not produce a complete copy of its patterns.

Another problem would be that this would mean that consciousness is not bound to anything physical, as it would automatically be transferred across the distance between the the original and duplicate, which once more poses the problem of acausality. Also, being non-physical, the consciousness could then also instantaneously travel an infinite distance. However, if the universe is infinite, there should already be an infinite number of duplicates in the universe because of ergodicity, meaning that we should already be transferred from one duplicate to another at random. Since there are an infinite number of duplicates, probabilities would break down (every probability would be infinity by infinity, therefore, undefined), and since everything still happens according to well-defined probabilities, this cannot be the case, unless the universe is finite.

Whatever causes consciousness, it cannot be patterns. However, it does seem that consciousness, although not caused by it, is determined by connections. But why can only the connection between one neuron and another make use conscious, and not the connection between one atom and another? In other words, why can only the patterns of our neurons produce consciousness, and not the patterns of random atoms? Why does consciousness attribute a specific meaning to those patterns, rather than one entirely different?

Perhaps consciousness could be compared to the interpretation of a book, the book we are reading being our brain. Though it is possible to write a book out of random strings of letters, such books could not have any meaning, even if a meaning were attributed to every string of letters. In order for it to be possible for a meaning to be attributed to it, there has to be a pattern in it.

If, in trying to decipher a book written in an unknown language, we would attribute a meaning to every string of letters, there would only be one, or at most a few, possibilities for most words, since most words will be repeated throughout the book in different contexts, each of which eliminates certain meanings. The longer the book is, the more words and phrases will be repeated, and so the fewer possible interpretations there are. If the book is of virtually infinite length, then only one interpretation makes sense.

Perhaps consciousness is an interpretation of patterns, and not so much the patterns themselves; ie, consciousness is the translator, the pattern is the language. If consciousness were patterns, after all, there would have to be a universal language for consciousness, as there would otherwise still be infinitely many ways in which the same patterns could cause different consciousnesses.

But if consciousness is the interpretation, then this should actually be the case: every pattern would be interpreted by consciousness in infinitely many ways, and therefore there should be infinitely many consciousnesses beside those of living beings, as there are, after all, infinitely many patterns in nature. Most of these consciousnesses, however, would be simple, random, meaningless, and irrelevant. Many of these patterns could also overlap, and almost all of these patterns could have multiple meanings.

Either how, these consciousnesses would be irrelevant to us, as we could never observe them. Moreover, they would have no connection to reality, nor a will of their own. They would be just like the dead matter that causes their consciousness.

Most patterns would produce a very chaotic kind of consciousnesses, and any pattern that would produce consciousness that has any order would have been organized for this purpose (through evolution), possibly with the exception of very rare coincidences. Therefore, the only consciousnesses with a will of their own would be consciousnesses that would have been organized with a goal (such as keeping the organism alive). All the rest would be little more than a whirling soup of random qualia.

I wrote my hypothesis of a brain connecting to a network as though I expect that people will do this overnight, but I actually think this will be a gradual process, in which people will gradually expand their consciousness both through informatics and neurology. As this happens, both elements will continue to grow, and we will keep having use of both.

I do not expect there will be a world in which we all be computers, as some say, but I do expect that computers will be part of us — as will our organisms — and that, through computers, we may all become part of one another, united into one superorganism. This does not, however, mean that we should lose our individuality to do so, as the fact that we could connect with one another fully does not mean that we would have to do so.

When communism rose in the previous century, as is now clear, it was much too early for the world to be ready for it, and thus it remains to this day. The failure of communism has shown that people are too self-centered for it to work, and unless people change, it can never work. People work out of necessity or out of greed, but not out of love, at least for now.

Communism is bound either to fall or turn into despotism as long as it is not the choice of the people themselves, and because of this, the communism we have seen so far has little to do with its actual ideals. Nonetheless, it is probable that communism will be the next step in the evolution of society, though in another form than is seen today. However, today, it is still too soon for us to take that step.

Every kind of government has its place in the evolution of society, and when it is time for one to succeed the other, this happens almost spontaneously, not through revolution. There was a time that democracy could not have succeeded, or even republicanism. When a nation tries to get ahead of itself in this evolution, it is bound to turn either into despotism or into anarchy, and so evolution is usually the best way of change.

In the beginning of this evolution, despotism is the only viable government: at this time, republicanism cannot or barely succeed, as there is too little cooperation between people for it to work. At this point, cooperation must be imposed by a despot. It is crude, but the only thing that works at this point. Without a single ruling power, everyone would become a despot. There is, fortunately, the mercy that the worst despots are often the quickest to be overthrown by the people.

Every society begins in anarchy, and, if it lives long enough, it eventually ends in anarchy, in much the same form, but on a larger scale. Anarchy is viable in the beginning of the formation of a society, when people still live in small clans, which are much alike to a large family. Sometimes, these clans are communistic. Superficially, it seems that these clans are more cooperative than most societies, but this is only so because they are so small; so small, in fact, that every or almost every member of the clan usually knows every other. As these groups grow, this level of cooperation is no longer possible, because although they may be cooperative towards people they know, they are quite uncooperative towards strangers. The people of a clan are so little used to strangers that they will often kill them on sight. Wars between neighboring clans are frequent. If the people of ten clans were put into one tribe overnight, most would be dead before long.

There is a lot of cooperation in early societies, but little cooperativeness. The cooperativeness in societies grows as they evolve, until they eventually achieve the level of democracy and eventually (though this has never happened so far) anarcho-communism. So far, however, anarcho-communism is not feasible, as people have yet to achieve the level of unity for it to work.

However, we live in a world were everything is being automatized through robotics and informatics. This is already posing problems in many developed capitalistic countries as more and more people become (or remain) unemployed as they are being replaced by computers. Because of this, many countries already find themselves to be forced into a compromise between capitalism and communism, in which unemployed people receive benefits during the time they are unemployed.

As work in the primary and secondary sector continues to be automatized, and not everyone can or wants to work in the tertiary sector, more and more people will become unemployed. Eventually, the rate of unemployment will become so high that it can no longer be resolved in any sensible way, forcing the government into offering people benefits in order to help them survive.

With the trend of robotization, it is only a matter of time before we achieve a state where our necessities are provided for automatically or largely so, and so become almost free. Eventually, it will be possible to produce anything through software, and since software can be duplicated freely, this will mean that all necessities will be available in sufficient amounts without any work being done. In such a society, it would be nonsensical to still pay for software, as everyone could as well have all software there is if no one asked money for it. In a society where everyone has enough to survive and where software offers so many possibilities, many people will see software (which by then would encompass all art, science, and culture of civilization) as being more important than money. It only takes a certain percentage of the population to believe this before the system collapses, all the more because many of these people would themselves be artists and programmers. The more people would believe spiritual values to be more important than material ones, the more the capitalistic system would be subverted, and software would be hacked and shared illegally. Moreover, artists and programmers who would be of this view would release their works for for free, so that, eventually, those who would still charge for their works would be likely to be ignored, all the more because their work would be motivated purely out of greed, rather than out of love, and therefore be seen as being of lower quality. It is therefore inevitable that, at this stage, software would become free or practically free.

The need for socialism will increase with unemployment, and eventually, artists, scientists and social workers will be the only people left to be employed. Most scientists, many social workers and some artists (in some countries) are already being paid by the state, but in future, all will depend on the state for payment. For now, scientists, artists and social workers are still required to work in order to be paid, but this is only because much of their work is not fully creative and involves routine. However, as the routine component of their work will eventually be done by computers (robot scientists already exist for genetic research, for instance, as do computer programs for educations), only the creative and social components will be left, and neither can be done on demand. Ideas come best when they are not forced, which is the only thing scientists (and, of course, artists) will still be needed for, and the same counts for compassion, which is what social workers will still be needed for. When I say creativity, I'm not talking about the ability to remember the right idea at the right time, but the ability to think of new, unique ideas that have never been used before, as anything less can be done by computers. With compassion, I'm not talking about commitment, patience or politesse, but genuine and heartfelt sympathy, as, again, anything less can be done by computers. Attempting to enforce creativity will lead to loss of inspiration. Attempting to enforce compassion will lead to detachment (as is seen in many psychologists and psychiatrists today). Either how, the best ideas will come from people who seek them because of their passion for the idea, not from people who seek them because they must. The same counts for compassion. The true scientists, social workers and artists of the future will not need money as an incentive to work. Those that would, would be incompetent anyway.

Obviously, the unemployment would also put many people before the problem of finding meaning in their lives, or rather, it would confront them with that problem which was already there, now they could no longer seek distraction in vacuous mind-numbing routine. By and by, people would learn to find meaning either in love or some form of creativity.

Uncreative people who would want to become more creative could be made more creative through cognotechnology (technology applied on cognition). Because of the significance cognotechnology will have on humanity, it is extremely important that everyone be given equal chances, and here, we are once more faced with a need for socialism: the means of cognotechnology should be equally allocated among those who desire it, for if this does not happen, a disastrous technological divide will result which is so great that, over time, humanity itself would actually split up into two separate groups, one being vastly more intelligent than the other. The intelligent group would become more successful, so acquire increased access to cognotechnology, and so forth. Of course, the more intelligent group would eventually realize the necessity to give the other group equal chances.

In the past, communism has failed because the interests of the individual are capitalistic. In future, capitalism will fail because the interests of the individual will be communistic.

In an infinite, or even just a very large Universe, there must have been at least some race which had lived long enough to achieve a state of godlike power and enlightenment. It is very possible that most sentient species would not have come that far, but even so, part of them would have, and in an infinite and eternal Universe, it would not matter how few there would be. Even in a very large and very old universe, it would still not matter very much how few there would be. Considering that as many of sixty have been observed as of 20/12/2008 which appear to be in the habitable zone of their star, and considering that there must be many, many more which we have as yet failed to discover with our currently primitive means of observing exoplanets, it is nothing less than prejudice to claim that there is nothing "out there."
Given the pains we take to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, if there are indeed intelligences besides our own, at least some of them would have taken the initiative to send forth Von Neumann probes. These are hypothetical spacecraft which would travel from exoplanet to exoplanet to explore, sending back information about their explorations either waiting for instructions or, more likely, make decisions on their own accord which would, with sufficient AI, get most obstacles out of the way. Every time they would have reached another exoplanet, they would replicate, meaning that they would produce more of their own kind, much like robots in factories today are already produced by other robots. Upon their replication, their now greater numbers could explore yet other exoplanets. Supposing these probes were nanoscale or even microscale, their mass would be so low that near-light speed would not require much energy -- - this would merely require more advanced miniaturization than we have today.
This energy could be provided mostly from an external source when the probe is still on or near its last exoplanet, for instance by the other probes, which then renew their own energy before departing themselves. Once it would be in outer space, its speed would not be braked by an atmosphere and could theoretically go on for many light years if it survived - it could use smaller amounts of energy to slightly adjust its course, to avoid obstacles or to enter into orbit around its target exoplanet. Because of their low mass, they could also be much, much greater in number, so that the chance that some would survive would be greater. In addition, they would not require much matter to replicate, as a proper micrometeorite would be enough. The most important problem with smaller sizes would be that less information could be contained in it. If the probe contained enough computing power, it could learn to communicate with us; this AI could be contained within a single computer, but it could also be contained within countless nanorobots. In addition, if it contained enough information, the computer could improve our knowledge by itself, for instance, or even improve ourselves, our very DNA and our thoughts, so as to "uplift" us as it is called in transhumanist jargon. The question here, of course, is whether we would want this, but some people among us certainly would (transhumanists, extropianists, many Buddhists, many mystics).
We have ourselves nearly achieved such level of technological sophistication, being at least a few decades and at most a few centuries away from it, supposing that our further development is unhindered by extinction level events (the most likely of which would probably be world-threatening terrorism). Since there occurred no actual events whatsoever which threatened to wipe out the entire human race since it arose, we may assume that many sentient species would probably have achieved the technology needed to build nanoscale Von Neumann probes. These could have explored the Universe practically at near-light speed, with only relatively very slight delays to replicate every time they would have reached new exoplanets.
Assuming that there have been such civilizations in the galaxy (four hundred billion stars), then they would have found us by now if they had existed at least fifty thousand years ago, which is only about fifteen thousand years before the first traces of the Cro-Magnon man showed up. Sensing intelligent life, their probes could have given at the very least some information about their species and their position in the universe. Given another hundred thousand years, their species themselves could have interfered by controlling the probes directly, so that even if their AI was too limited to make them communicate with us, the species themselves would have done so - the question is then if by that time this species would still exist or have interest in communicating with us. This would perhaps not have been necessary, however, as it is likely that if such probes had been sent at all, their AI could perhaps have been strong enough to communicate with us by itself, albeit in some primitive way.
Even supposing that we have been alone in the galaxy, there must have been some civilization whose Von Neumann probes could have reached us from somewhere millions of light years away. There is no reason why the probes would ever stop in their mission to find life unless the species which had initiated it would also itself terminate it. Our local group contains 35 galaxies and is about 10 million light years across - it would therefore have taken at most five million years for any sufficiently advanced species in the local group to reach us, and there are many trillions of stars in the local group. On biological time scale, five million years is just a minute. Five million years ago, the first hominids started to arise, so it seems reasonable to assume that at this time there had been plenty of races elsewhere in the local group which had become more advanced than we are today; the same can still more or less be assumed for hundreds of millions of years ago - at this point whatever intelligence there was on earth was still unsophisticated, but there are plenty of planets, including, probably, habitable planets, which arose hundreds of millions or even billions of years earlier.
Thus again, the question arises: where is everyone?

Imagine a diffuse jelly of very large macromolecules which, while large in surface area, take little volume; these could, for instance, be very large macrocycles (macrocycles being large molecular circles), made large enough to let plenty of oxygen and other small molecules through. Suppose that, like most macrocycles, these would contain a great deal of aromatic molecules, and that through pi-pi interaction ( which occurs in the "stacking" of aromatic molecules), so that these would be weakly bond. Just how solid the whole of macrocycles would depend on how many pi orbitals there would be in the aromatic molecules and how many of these molecules there would be.
Now suppose that these macrocycles would be bond strongly enough to temporarily sustain the weight of an object or even a person, upon which the macrocycles would slowly break their bonds with one another. This would be reversible because the bonds are intermolecular, and after the object or person has sunk deeper into the jelly of macrocycles, they would stack again. If whatever sunk into the jelly would be a person, he or she could still breathe because the macrocycles, having such a large cavity, would allow enough air to pass through. The aromatic molecules could be so arranged within the macrocycles that they would bind to one another in a regular pattern, and above the cavity in every macrocycle there would be another.
Such diffuse "jelly" of macrocycles could be used as a kind of chemical elevator, although it could only go down. The advantage of such an elevator would be that it could be created very quickly, and could even be transported. This could prove to be very useful during emergencies. For instance, a helicopter could bring a kind of tube-formed plastic "bag" to a high story of a burning skyscraper, upon which it could be pumped full of such macrocycles from the ground (which would be far too heavy to escape from the top). Given that the helicopter would then keep the bag from toppling, people who would be trapped in the skyscraper could safely, slowly "fall" to the ground.

As any system inherently controls itself, any system can also inherently be controlled: we need only to know how it controls itself to control it. There must be some interaction between the system and part of the rest of the universe as the existence of the system would otherwise not be relevant. By controlling that part of the universe we could control that interaction, and in this way, interact with this system. If we find out how to do this, we can fully control the system, and any phenomenon that is part of it. With that knowledge, we can control anything. The only barrier to omnipotence, then, would be a barrier to omniscience.

It follows that anything in the universe can be controlled, merely because the universe itself can control itself, and we are part of that universe. If it is connected to our universe, it can be controlled - if it isn't connected to our universe, it doesn't really exist to us. There is therefore no limit to what we can achieve except for the limit to what the universe itself can achieve - that is, the limit to what exists in the universe. If the complexity of the universe is infinite, so the complexity of our knowledge of it will become, and therefore so will the complexity of our technology.

The idea that there is no limit to technology is known as the sans ceiling hypothesis.

For a discussion on whether or not the universe can be infinite in complexity, see the Infinity Principle:
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/the-infinity-principle.html

Related entries, on the eventual "theosis" (deification) of intelligent species such as ourselves:
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/god-theory-part-i-analytical.html
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/the-god-theory-part-ii-holistic.html